We have to think through how to choose a meaningful life where we’re helping one another in ways that really help the Earth.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Commons: Elinor Ostrom Wins Nobel for Common(s) Sense
from Yes! website.
From ocean to ozone: Earth's nine life-support systems
from New Scientist.
The demands of nearly 7 billion humans are stretching Earth to breaking point. We know about climate change, but what about other threats? To what extent do pollution, acidifying oceans, mass extinctions, dead zones in the sea and other environmental problems really matter? We can't keep stressing these systems indefinitely, but at what point will they bite back?
Rural Living May Be Hazardous To Your Health
from Civil Eats. What I found particularly useful in this article was a link accessing a study of healthy living by county for the US. The study was recently released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. So, check out how healthy your county is.
There are many threads you can pull from the data that contributed to the study’s rankings, including statistics about health behaviors (alcohol and tobacco use, obesity rates), social and economic factors (education, employment, income, community safety), health care access and quality, and environmental factors, including air quality and access to healthy foods.
Pig Business or Business Pigs? [and related videos]
from Civil Eats. Read the article which furnishes excellent background material, and then access the U-Tube videos that US agri-biz does not allow you to see via the links in the article.
Big Money’s influence, along with that of many other large and wealthy corporations, dictates the type and scope of laws throughout the US and the world. My daddy used to call this the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
Iran Captures a ‘Good’ Terrorist
from Anti-War. Didn't you know that there are good terrorists as well as bad terrorists?
In a July 7, 2008, article for The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh quoted Robert Baer, a former CIA clandestine officer who worked in South Asia and the Middle East for nearly two decades, as saying that Jundullah was one of the militant groups in Iran benefiting from U.S. support.
All in the Family--[US] Media Reporting on Israel
by Alison Weir from Counterpunch.
For a great many of the reporters and editors determining what Americans learn about Israel-Palestine, Israel is family.
Greece: February 24 massive general strike – workers’ movement back in action!
from In Defense of Marxism.
Yesterday Greece was shaken by a massive 24 hour general strike. In some sectors there was a total walk out, and in industry as a whole 70% of the workers came out. This is the answer of the Greek working class to the government’s severe austerity measures. The task now is to build on this and keep up the pressure to get the whole package withdrawn.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Obama to the Business Roundtable: Health Care Reform Will Be Good for Business
from ABC News. I am posting this article to emphasize who the real rulers are in the US. The Business Roundtable is the most important formal organization of the US ruling class. (For an excellent examination of ruling class organizations, see this.) They are Obama's bosses. They are the people who really rule this country. Forget about Congress, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, the Constitution, etc--this is where most key decisions are really decided. That is why Obama went and spoke to them, because without their support nothing happens--and nothing much has been happening for the public benefit under Obama's Presidency, or any other administration for that matter.
Pallet Tim
from Washinton's Blog. This article provides some shady examples about how the ruling class uses your tax dollars--not theirs--theirs are safely stored in offshore banks.
Scientists Find First Physiological Evidence of Brain's Response to Inequality
from Science Daily.
The human brain is a big believer in equality -- and a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, has become the first to gather the images to prove it.
Ron Paul wins! (So who appears on Meet the Press?)
dated 2-24-10 by an American blogger carried on RT (Russia Times) website. Let me be clear about one thing--I am no fan of Ron Paul, the Congressman from Texas. He is a libertarian capitalist who essentially wants a form of capitalism that existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus he is an old fashioned conservative and very different from the neo-conservatives. As such he wants as little government as possible (except on the issue of abortion which he thinks the government should prohibit), everything decided by the market, mostly anti-union and against minimum wage laws, against any government measures to extend health insurance coverage, against gun control laws, etc. Lately he has been attacking the Federal Reserve, the mostly private consortium of big banking institutions that control our money supply and are at the core of the American ruling class. This is an irritant to the ruling class which otherwise likes to have a few eccentrics like him around to give the illusion of choice, but they mostly ignore him. The author of this article provides a recent illustration of this latter point.
Mainstream Media Questions Inaccuracies in 9/11 Story
from Salem-News, Salem, Oregon, USA.
The mainstream press is showing interest in a taboo, however glaring subject; the inconsistencies in the Bush White House 9/11 account.
The Truth About 9/11
by Elizabeth Woodworth from Counter Currents. She provides a good update on the growing world wide skepticism regarding the official report on the 9/11 tragedy.
If Fossil Fuel Reserves Rise Carbon Should Be Left Where It Belongs: In The Ground
by George Monbiot from Counter Currents.
Some people see the prospect of peak oil as good news for the environment, as it might be the only threat which could prompt governments to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But it is also likely to encourage them to stimulate investments in even dirtier sources of energy: tar sands, oil shales and turning coal into synthetic petroleum.The author correctly spots major contradictions in the policies of British government officials, but fails to understand, or point out, that the ultimate contradiction informing all contradictions in capitalist societies is the capitalist system itself which demands unlimited growth.
White House healthcare summit
from the Guardian. Just in case you missed the live TV coverage yesterday, this is a somewhat cynical, but quite entertaining report on the health care summit which brought some leading figures from both capitalist parties together by Obama to try to move health care proposals forward. Yesterday's live stream coverage from Pro Publica was very useful in understanding why so little has been, and will in the future not be, accomplished to provide health care for all Americans. In that article they made reference to a study which also documented the political reality that "our" Congressional legislators serve at the behest of their sponsors.
... this study [4] (PDF) conducted by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington detailing information on health industry donations to the summit's participants in recent years. According to the report, over the past five years the 21 politicians at the summit have received nearly $47 million from the industry.
Dems Retreat, Senate Renews PATRIOT Act
from Anti-War. In contrast to health care proposals to extend coverage to uninsured Americans, notice how easy it is to renew the so-called Patriot Act (like passing all the Pentagon funding bills), which essentially has shredded the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. As portrayed in mainstream media (MSM) this was because of "blue dog democrats". Seems like MSM, owned by and on behalf of the ruling capitalist class, likes to color code politics ("red States" and "blue States") as a way of explaining the US political process which, of course, explains nothing--which, of course, is the safest thing to do.
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